Looks like the Assembly didn’t hear that these kinds of “safe storage” laws were tossed with Heller. From Tom King, head of NYSRPA:

YOUR RIGHT TO HOME PROTECTION IS IN JEOPARDY!

Assembly Bill 3292-A is flawed legislation that will make it a crime to leave an unlocked gun in your home. We have a constitutional right to defend our homes and our loved ones. In March, well over a thousand sportsmen rallied in Albany in a demonstration of solidarity for our Second Amendment freedom. If A.3292-A becomes law then an elderly homeowner, a single woman, or a husband defending his family will now have to be worried about where the state mandated key is to unlock the gun cabinet when confronted by an intruder. The intent of the law is to make homes safer for children but far more children are harmed by accidentally ingesting household chemicals or medicines. What’s next – state mandated locks for our kitchen and medicine cabinets?
You can’t [legislate] common sense. Call your local Assemblymember and tell them to vote NO on A.3292-A.

This ostensibly is “for the children,” but I would note that this applies to any household, such as mine, that does not have children. The purpose it will serve is important, which is more gun owners being in prison. We harp on helping create more law abiding gun owners, they try, as best they can, to make it difficult to own a gun and be law abiding.

12 Responses to “Alert for New York Gun Owners”

The bill says that the provisions do not apply under several conditions, the last one being:

SUCH WEAPON IS NEEDED FOR THE LAWFUL PURPOSE OF SELF DEFENSE.

That pretty much means you gotta lock it up when you leave the house, but while in the house and (presumably) in need of lawful self-defense, the law does not apply.

Some courts may argue otherwise, but the creation of such an open affirmative defense will usually help the defendant more than hurt.

The law sucks ass and should be struck down for being anti-gun in origin. But it would probably survive a Heller-inspired review provided the state does not force people to lock up guns, or render them inoperable in other ways, while they are home.

FWIW, this is why good Supreme Court decisions are important. Were it not for Heller/McDonald the NY Assembly would have surely not included the above opt-out. They would have forced all guns under lock and key at all times, regardless of self-defense. As it stands, they have their hands tied by the US Constitution.

Nonetheless, it’s an affirmative defense that has to be raised in court. What if a wife calls 911 for chest pains, the husband is out, the gun is registered to him. It’s unsecured, but not in a position where it could be viewed as needed for lawful self-defense.

It’ll be enforced in circumstances where people have contact with law enforcement, such as calling 911 because someone is having chest pains, etc. Law enforcement ends up being first on the scene, notices an unsecured firearm, and then you’re facing charges and possible prison time… in addition to whatever health problem you might have.

I’d like to think that most police officers woukd excercise discretion and look the other way when responding to a medical emergency call. Especially when the law is so laughingly ridiculous. But then again we’ve seen what they did to Brian Aitken when they should have just looked the other way.

The cops won’t exercise any discretion and will in fact search out for firearms by asking family members and others about them to get the needed PC. In MA, the only other state where this law exists in this form (i.e.; most only place criminal liability if the kid actually gets a hold of a gun), the law is wildly abused by cops. It is used heavily to ensure someone gets arrested when a gun owner is within spitting distance of any police interaction. 95%+ of all people charged with it were either victims of crimes themselves or had neighbors call the cops on them for something and the cops went digging. The vast majority had no children in the home.

If this passes, NY cops will get a tool they can use to imprison otherwise lawful gun owners. I speak from experience.

I can just imagine someone leaving their house, forgetting to close the garage door or something. Neighbors call the cops to say the house may have been burglarized, and the cops notice an unsecured rifle in plain view.

That’s one possibility but others exist like having the cops called to your house because your violent adult step son who doesn’t live in the house threatened to kill you and the cops asking where the guns are stored (because they know you have them because permits are required) and they find out there is an unsecured firearm in the nightstand.

Or how about the 40 something step son this time called the cops on his elderly step dad and the cops come while the elderly step dad is packing up his guns to get them out of the house. Or when three licensed individuals live the house with no minor children and the cops come to seize the guns because of a police interaction (printing aka; man with a gun report) and turn an already unconstitutional seizure into a criminal charge.

Or how about when a gun is stolen and the person is charged with §131L (our storage statute) because the cops figure if it was stolen, it couldn’t have been stored all that “securely”.

Not to mention the chilling effect this law has on those who forgo an operative firearm for fear of prosecution.

I have seen it all but I rarely see a gun owner who has minor children who were possibly in jeopardy.

I just keep thinking of some Family out in the Country who keeps an “Barn Gun” by the back door, like the Family has been doing since they settled there in 1800’s. They go to Church on Sunday, and leave the House empty. Nice to know that they just became “Criminalized.”

Although I have not heard the term “barn gun” before, I have seen many shotguns and rifles propped up in corners by the doors inside people’s houses many times over the years. I cannot ever recall seeing any trigger locks on any of these guns though. For folks in the country areas, it would seem to me that this was a common practice, but I would bet that your typical Obama-supporting libtard, gun-hater, and city-dweller type would have had a conniption fit over seeing such a thing as this. People like this would probably do the happy dance every time a church-going, tax-paying, law-abiding “bitter clinger” got arrested because of gun laws like these.